


Calligraphers of Silence

by Stripey



Category: Sex Pistols | Love Pistols
Genre: AU after chapter 44, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Explicit Language, Implied Mpreg, M/M, Mpreg, Past Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Sick Character, Slow To Update
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2018-08-14 21:17:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8029231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stripey/pseuds/Stripey
Summary: Norio gets along on his own as well as he can for five years, until sheer dumb luck ruins it for him.





	1. Part I: Five Years Gone

It takes some trial and error, but after a couple months on his own Norio develops a set of habits that seem to work. He carries a backpack that always contains a change of clothes, a package of wet wipes at least half full, and other necessities as he sees fit. He picks deodorant and cologne so strong that they make his eyes water and his nose want to climb back into his skull, and reapplies both liberally after every shower, on every break between classes, and later carries on the habit when he starts picking up jobs. If he sweats he uses the wipes before reapplying the scent maskers, and changes his clothes too. He even carries dry shampoo in case he sweats in his scalp, though after a particularly bad encounter he starts targeting jobs that keep him inside public venues with air conditioning.

Hiding his own body odor was key, but if possible the overt application deodorant and cologne are a bigger help. He comes to find that with a strong enough olfactory attack madararui in particular will avert their eyes and their senses as a form of self-preservation, and try to keep any interactions as quick as possible.

He gets along on his own as well as he can for five years, until sheer dumb luck ruins it for him.

He doesn’t recognize the customer at first. He’s two cities over from where he grew up, and hasn’t run into a familiar face since he moved, which had been the point. He’s not looking because he shouldn’t have to. The cigarette he just smoked has given him a pleasant nicotine high, he’s secure in being freshened up. And ok, so his feet are killing him because his shoes are past needing to be replaced, and he’s a bit hungry because, as usual, they had a rush and he had to skip his dinner break, but he can probably take something home from the kitchen once he gets off the clock.

Things are normal. He exits the kitchen doors into the soft, lantern-lit restaurant interior and the wooden floor gleams from being freshly mopped, and the dark wood tables and straight black chairs in his section are all clean, just as he left them. Aki, the hostess, indicates a table where she just sat two new customers for him to tend. He grabs the pad of paper and pen out of his back pocket, puts on his best bland smile and heads over to introduce himself.

“Hello, I’ll be your waiter today. Would you like to start with something to drink?”

The man on Norio’s left, a middle aged business type with the typical suit and salt-and-pepper hair, starts asking about their beer selection. Norio rattles off some options, and writes down the one the customer decides. Then Norio pivots slightly to address the man to his right, a blonde with short-cropped hair who appears to be in his early to mid twenties, wearing a plain white dress shirt and black slacks. He’s a bit taken aback to be met with an expression of wide-eyed, open-mouthed shock. Norio automatically looks over his shoulder to see if there’s something unusual going on behind him, something he missed. But no, it’s nothing but the normal activity for a slightly upscale restaurant at 9pm. He turns back to ask the customer… something. If he’s okay. If he wants a drink or an appetizer.

Instead, the guy takes a quick little breath and says, “Norio?”

It takes a few seconds, but he quickly realizes the guy looks familiar, like several people he used to know. But this guy looks close to his own age and hey, didn’t he used to have longer hair? And before he realizes the name has reached his brain Norio finds himself saying, “Hidekuni?”

***

“I changed my mind.”

The about-face is so rapid it takes Norio an embarrassingly long time to process Kunimasa’s words. He furrows his brow, taking in how suddenly Kunimasa is standing apart from him, a few steps back from the porch of his family’s restaurant. His posture is rigid, back straight, eyes pointed at the ground.

Norio edges out a confused little, “What?”

“I changed my mind. I don’t want to get married.”

The slightly windy day has gone still, or maybe that’s just the noise in Norio’s head. Are the trees still moving beyond where they are? Norio isn’t sure, he can’t tear his eyes away from Kunimasa. Finally, he asks, “You want to get married later?”

Kunimasa just tightens his clenched fists, so Norio continues, because there’s a cold feeling creeping from his feet and into his legs, the world just beyond Kunimasa is blurry, dizzying, and maybe if he talks enough he can stop the train before it crashes. “I’ll admit I thought it was sudden, but I asked everyone else and they didn’t seem surprised. So I figured it was normal, to get married young?” His voice peters out for a second but then he follows, stronger, “But that would be fine, we could just continue dating until we are both ready-“

“I don’t want to marry you.” Norio stops at Kunimasa’s interruption, stunned. Kunimasa barrels on, “I’ve thought it over more; you’re not adapting to our society very well. And I’ve been told I should look for someone from a more affluent family.”

There are no words in Norio’s head, nothing to push back with. Kunimasa had been interested in other people, sure, and his interest in Norio was often distressingly focused more on how Norio could contribute to his family than any real interest in Norio himself. But he’d never before _wavered_ in his interest, and he’d never backed out of anything he said. “But, I thought. I mean. Didn’t you just say you like me?”

And Norio really thought this day couldn’t get any worse. But then Kunimasa relaxes his hands, meets Norio’s eyes, and says, “I was wrong.”

***

“Oh god. Oh my god.” Hidekuni stands up, and Norio is still so stunned that he doesn’t back away before Hidekuni is embracing him. He doesn’t even flinch at Norio’s fresh cologne, and Norio hasn’t been this close to anyone except his mother in years. All he can do is fist his hands in his pants to keep himself from returning the gesture, and be glad Hidekuni isn’t projecting his scent because the small sniff he gets when his face is briefly enfulged in Hidekuni’s chest is so good his toes want to curl in his cheap shoes.

Thankfully the hug does not last long. Soon Hidekuni backs away, his cheeks tinged just a bit pink. He sneezes and scratches the back of his head in embarrassment. “Sorry.”

Norio unsticks his tongue and manages, “It’s alright.”

“I had no idea you were living here,” Hidekuni continues. “You hardly look like yourself, I almost didn’t recognize you.”

It’s not that Norio had made efforts to _not_ look like himself, but in the intervening years he had shot up a few inches, his face had thinned a bit, and he had gained a bit of width in his shoulders. He’s still built like a beanpole, but he can at least comfortably fit in clothes from the mens section. He likes his hair long, and let it grow until it reached his chin, but now he keeps the bottom half shaved in an undercut and ties the top back in a ponytail while he works. He had first done it on recommendation from a coworker shortly after moving, and had to admit it did help keep his hair controlled. It also made him look a bit like a punk, which wasn’t what he wanted, but the change had also helped him feel distanced from his younger, stupider high school self. He’d spent more time than he will ever admit running his hand over the back of his head, feeling somehow cleansed. The worst was over and he would never again have reason to cry over a decision as stupid as pursuing Kunimasa.

 Norio self-consciously rubs his hand over the back of his head and smiles uncomfortably at Hidekuni. “You look different too. Short hair suits you.” Hidekuni has also gotten a bit taller and broader; but he’s always had the same build as Kunimasa and Yonekuni. Norio stops that train of thought before it can get away from him, and thankfully the older man to his left clears his throat.

“Who’s your friend, Mr. Woodville?”

“Ah,” Hidekuni straightens and turns to face his dinner companion. “He is a friend of my family. I apologize for the interruption; I just hadn’t seen him in a long time. Ah, Norio,” Hidekuni indicates the older man, “This is professor Shiba from the languages department at my university. I had accompanied him for the weekend to attend a seminar.”

Norio says a silent prayer of thanks to the gods, glad that Hidekuni isn’t attending a university nearby.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Professor Shiba, I hope you are finding the visit enjoyable.”

 Hidekuni takes his seat as the professor nods, and Norio grasps the opportunity to make an exit, “Would you be interested in an appetizer?”

They decline, and Norio goes to fetch their drinks. Hidekuni’s eyes follow him the rest of the time they are there, but it’s subtle. He has to keep most of his attention on his professor for politeness’ sake. The only exception is when Norio processes the bill. Under the money Norio finds a personal card with Hidekuni’s name and number.

He throws it in the trash.

***

_I was wrong. I was wrong. I was wrong._

Norio backs up one step, then another. He feels tears quickly pool in the corners of his eyes and drip down his face.

“So, that’s it?” His voice is wobbly.

Kunimasa keeps his back straight, and after a moment he breaks Norio’s gaze to stick his hands in his pockets He looks to the side and shrugs his shoulders.

Norio takes a shaky breath, hears his voice start to rise up with it, and clamps down before he can start wailing like a child. He turns away from Kunimasa, runs into the house and down the hallways until he reaches the room he’s been sharing with Shiro. He thinks he saw Hidekuni grab at him, and passes Shiro and Yonekuni, who both almost trip backwards in surprise. He’s pretty sure he hears Yonekuni yell at him, but doesn’t acknowledge it.

It takes mere minutes to shove his belongings back into his travel bag. When he slides the screen open to leave, he almost runs into Manami on the other side. Norio quickly  catalogs the peculiar pouty, narrow-eyed expression he has come to associate with the mixture of deviousness and eager temper specific to Kunimasa’s youngest brother. Manami probably came to yell at Norio for running in the house. His expression quickly starts to drop and look a little uncertain when he spies the travel bag in Norio’s tight fist. Rather than risk getting side tracked, Norio does what he knows will confuse Manami most. He gives a short bow and says, “Please extend to your mother my thanks for her hospitality.” Then he rushes down the hall before Manami can consider following him, and his luck holds out. He makes it out a side entrance and up the street without encountering anybody else.

He runs to the train station and purchases a ticket for the next available route and doesn’t even check to see if it’s the right one. People on the train are looking at him with concern, and he wipes his eyes and nose with the back of his sleeve in a poor attempt to clean himself up.

When his mother voices her surprise at his early return, he tells her he had a fight with his friends. Then he spends the next couple weeks telling her he’s been getting bullied at school until she finally agrees he can transfer somewhere else. It’s not even really a lie.

He ignores all texts save one from Teruhiko, checking in with him over break. Norio texts him back that he’s having a hard time, and needs to be by himself for a while. Then he changes his number. It occurs to him later that none of his new “friends” ever bothered to visit him at home; they don’t know where he lives.

He’s polite to people at his new school, but keeps to himself as much as possible and manages to graduate without making any friends. It’s clear to him now there’s nowhere he will ever belong. He’s not a monkey, but he wasn’t able to bridge the gap into madararui society, and now he doesn’t want to. All he wants is to be left alone.

Perhaps best of all, after hours upon days of mostly failed effort learning to control his soul’s appearance, all it takes is Kunimasa’s rejection. It gives him a shroud he can feel in his brain and behind his heart. It’s dark, and heavy, and he can feel his true self curled up under it, hiding, as safe as he’s ever going to get.

After Kunimasa’s rejection, he never has problems controlling his soul’s appearance again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Track 1: [Metamorphosis 1 by Philip Glass](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2inNYauU1o&index=1&list=PLYhtSUd2DG2wgF1vBvPJgqPklqnaSRh97)
> 
> As far as I recall, the manga never states the exact location for the setting, so I’m not either. I’m also not great with Japanese honorifics, and since this is an English audience I’m hoping you guys will just forgive me for not making the characters use them. The tags may have to be updated a bit as I go, but I’m fairly certain I’ve already got all the major warnings figured that might trigger someone. Also, I’m not sure how strongly mpreg is going to feature in this fic; right now everything else has to play second string to getting the mess between Norio and Kunimasa figured out. 
> 
> This fic is canon through chapter 44. Since it looked like Kunimasa was going to reject Norio, I assumed that and went from there. I recently reread the manga and it one of the omake’s Kunimasa does visit Norio’s house, so I guess that I’m deviating from canon a bit there for the sake of convenience. FYI to people who are afraid that series has been abandoned, I guess it’s just got a slow update schedule in Japan? I’ve found raws through chapter 50, and Japan appears to have seen the release of volume 9. 
> 
> No promises on the update schedule.


	2. Bad Acting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By the fourth week his worry has shifted from the madararui to whether he’s going to need to call off one of his shifts to go to the doctor, because the cold has never really gone away, and he’s feeling the wear from it. 
> 
> Naturally, as soon as he decides to shelve the issue it falls right back into his lap.

For the first few days after Hidekuni’s visit Norio is on edge, half-expecting Hidekuni or another unwanted visitor to turn up at his job. He doesn’t sleep the first night, tossing and turning on his thin mattress, unreasonably worried he will find a line of madararui at the restaurant the next day, demanding he contribute to their bloodlines by bearing their children. The lost sleep upsets his stomach, and he skips breakfast and finds himself sluggish and shaky at his morning job, though thankfully the manager at the bakery doesn’t seem offended. He tells her he thinks he’s coming down with something, which turns out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy because he develops a cough and runny nose a few days later. The bakery gives him an irritating paper mask to wear over his mouth and nose, and the restaurants both make him wash dishes in the back until he gets past the obvious symptoms.

When a week goes by and things continue as normal Norio begins to relax. After the second week he realizes he has worried for nothing. Despite his status as a returner to ancestry, after a five year absence there is no reason for anyone from madararui society care about him on a personal level. Finally, in the third week he decides that either Hidekuni didn’t tell anyone, or, perhaps he did and nobody cares enough to go out of their way to upend Norio’s life.

He puts the entire issue out of his mind. He goes to his jobs, scrubs and deodorizes himself during breaks, and when the other host at the family restaurant where he pulls midday shifts calls in sick, he insists he’s feeling better and takes the extra work. He can hide in bed all day and worry himself even sicker, or he can earn extra money to help pad his bank account. His life is too prone to complications for him to mind some sacrifice of his time for a bit more financial security.

By the fourth week his worry has shifted from the madararui to whether he’s going to need to call off one of his shifts to go to the doctor, because the cold has never really gone away, and he’s feeling the wear from it.

Naturally, as soon as he decides to shelve the issue it falls right back into his lap.

***

His hands are red and cracked from weeks of exposure to soapy water, and Setsuo, the primary evening manager, has been nagging him to wear gloves, but water always gets inside them, so Norio’s stopped bothering. Setsuo has been harder to convince of Norio’s good health than the manager at his midday job, and he’s tired of being stuck on dish duty. It’s hot in the back of the restaurant, and he has started to carry two changes of clothes instead of one to help cover the sweat. If he’s going to be stuck with wet, soapy hands on top of everything else, he is not going to deal with the irritation of trying to firmly grasp dishes through the oversized rubber fingers of restaurant-grade dishwashing gloves.

The dishes are temporarily caught up, and it’s time for his break. Norio dries his hands and heads towards the employee restroom to do his usual routine, only to be grabbed by Setsuo before he reaches the door. Norio tenses, even though it’s just his elbow he’s not got a great history with being grabbed in any manner, but Setsuo lets go as soon as Norio turns to face him.

“Sorry,” Setsuo says. His mouth is set in a grim line, and he has a bowl of soup in a takeaway container in his other hand. “I was wondering if I could convince you to take the rest of your shift off?”

Norio cringes. Even though dishwashing duty pays less than wait staff, this is still his best paying job. “Ah, that’s not necessary-“

Setsuo interrupts him, “You still don’t seem well. I know you’ve mentioned you have a morning job, so I’m thinking it’s a good opportunity for you to get some rest. If you want to go to the doctor tomorrow, we could arrange for your shift to start late.”

And really, that would be a good idea. Wasn’t Norio just thinking of that? But he’s not used to other people commenting on his personal life, and before Norio even thinks about it he finds himself reassuring his manager. “It’s just a virus I’m having a hard time kicking, so I don’t think I need to go to the doctor. But I’ll go ahead and go home early, since you are offering.” Norio glances past the doors to the restaurant proper and frowns a bit. It still looks fairly busy. “Are you sure it’s ok for me to leave?”

Setsuo shrugs, “The dinner rush is over. I’ll just pull someone from the wait staff or prep to finish the dishes.”

Norio nods and Setsuo shoves the soup in his hands and waives him off. Norio watches his managers’ retreating back, glances at the soup, then shrugs his shoulders and detours to throw his apron in with the bin to be washed with the rest from previous crews. He retrieves his jacket and backpack, then does his usual bathroom routine. He spends a few minutes coughing, getting the urge out of his system since he’s been fighting it the last few hours. It occurs to him if management was so quick to send him home and had the soup ready to go with him, he must really not look good. In the mirror he can see his skin color is paler than usual, and he has dark circles under his eyes, but it’s not like he sleeps a lot to begin with. Really, he doesn’t look much different than usual. Maybe they heard him coughing in the bathroom during his first break?

Norio shakes his head. He’s just wasting time wondering about this stuff. He splashes water on his face and wipes with a paper towel, applies new deodorant, a new shirt, and even uses the dry shampoo. Sine he’s heading home it’s probably not necessary, but it makes him feel a bit better.

Having done all he can, Norio ties his hair back, puts on his jacket, leaves the bathroom and heads towards the front of the restaurant. They’ve got a few empty tables, and most of the ones that have customers at them aren’t even all full, so Setsuo was right that the dinner rush is over. Out of habit, Norio cases a few tables as he passes; one has a family of four, in the booth next to them an elderly couple, then an empty booth, and at the last table before the entrance there’s a lone man wearing a long black coat, staring out the window. Out the corner of his eye Norio sees the guys head turn to look back inside the restaurant as Norio passes, probably looking for his waiter. By the doors Aki is standing in her little podium, her long hair pinned back neatly behind her ears, uniform crisp, menus in her hands, and Norio nods to her as he exits the restaurant into the cool winter air.

As soon as he’s outside the gust of cold, dry air hits him in the face and rasps against the back of his lungs, and he leans against the façade outside the restaurant until the coughing fit passes. Then he pulls a cigarette out of his front coat pocket and lights it up. Smoking probably isn’t helping his lungs, but the hit from the nicotine is pleasant, and it’s nice to have some warmth in front of his face on the way home.

The street is relatively deserted, all the restaurants and little stores are slowing down or closing up. Norio is about half a block towards home when he hears, “Hey, wait,” and quick footsteps behind him. He doesn’t think much of it, there’s a couple other people walking too. He moves a bit closer to the buildings so he’s not in the way, and then there’s a hand on his shoulder, turning him so his back is against the wall.

Adrenaline is running through his body before he can even process shock. Norio gets a glimpse of someone a lot taller than him, with dark hair, and his fist is flying towards the guys face without conscious thought. There’s a limited number of reasons someone might try to accost him on a relatively deserted street in the dark, and none of them are good. His fist hits the guys’ cheek, his knuckles are screaming, and the guy doesn’t even fall down. He takes a step to the side to compensate for the punch, grabs Norio by both hands and holds him against the wall with brute force.

“Leave me alone!” Norio yells. The guy is saying something, but Norio’s eyes are focused over the guys shoulder, trying to see if there are still other people around. He’s on a public street this time, not an alley or an empty room. If he makes enough noise someone might intervene or call the cops. “Leave me alone, leave me alone, leave me alone!”

Then suddenly he’s slumped on the ground. Nothing is holding him against the wall anymore. Norio takes in gasps of air, coughs, gasps, coughs, over and over. His heart is thundering in his ears. It takes some indeterminate amount of time for him to reorient himself and get his breathing under control, until finally he hears someone saying his name repeatedly.

“Norio, Norio, Norio, hey, calm down. I didn’t mean- hey, Hey! Just, just breathe. Hey, Norio-“

There’s a guy crouched in front of him, and Norio looks up from where his eyes have been trained on the ground, up, up, up past expensive black patented business shoes, black slacks, a long black coat, wide shoulders and dark hair that’s professionally styled. The guys’ eyes are a wide, and his hand is held a bit in front of Norio like he wants to touch him but is reconsidering the idea. He finally takes in the guy’s face and almost wishes it had been a random stranger, because shit, this is probably not much better.

“Shit.” Norio enunciates clearly.

“Norio?”

He takes in another breath of air, and thankfully doesn’t cough. He starts to push himself up from the ground, and there’s a hand held out for him to take, but he ignores it. As soon as he’s upright he realizes he dropped his cigarette, and his soup is splattered all over the sidewalk. “Shit,” he says again, because he was really looking forward to that soup. He fishes in his pocket for another cigarette and lights it up, though it’s going to take more than nicotine to get him through whatever is coming. Finally, he looks the guy in the face.

“Kunimasa.”

Kunimasa straightens up and takes a step back, and it’s great that for once in his life he manages to respect Norio’s space because Norio isn’t sure what he would do if Kunimasa attempted any sort of sad imitation of the first time they met. Norio has a moment to be ridiculously glad he’s so exhausted, because the sickness on top of the lack of sleep and the extra shifts and the mounting adrenaline crash has left him without enough fucks to give to provide the otherwise guaranteed freakout he _should_ be having over Kunimasa’s sudden, unwelcome reappearance in his life.

But really, given the succinct explanation of Kunimasa’s regard for Norio the last time they spoke, even if Hidekuni did tell Kunimasa he ran into Norio last month, what in eight hells is Kunimasa even doing here?

“What are you doing here?” Norio asks, because Kunimasa is not providing his side of the social graces. And also, it’s the most obvious question. And also, Norio doesn’t feel like bothering with politeness, all things considered.

Kunimasa catches his eye, then looks at the ground again and shrugs his shoulders, hands in his pockets. Other than his hair being slicked back he looks much the same as he did five years ago: tall and broad and serious, but more polished and mature. Okay, so, Kunimasa is _at least_ as attractive as he was five years ago. Pity he’s such a terrible asshole.

The wind starts up, and Norio is thankful his nose is still stuffed, so much so that even without the constant scent blind he subjects himself to with the cologne, he’s fairly certain he wouldn’t be able to smell Kunimasa anyway. Given his reaction to a brief whiff of Hidekuni a month prior, he doesn’t even want to know how his traitorous body would react if he could smell his ex… are they ex-boyfriends or ex-fiancees? If it’s the latter, they may well hold the record for the shortest engagement in history. 

Kunimasa continues to say nothing, just keeps glancing at Norio, at the brick wall, at Norio, at the street, at Norio.

Norio sneezes, restrains himself from wiping his nose on his sleeve, takes another puff of his cigarette. The silence is past awkward at this point. Finally, he gives up. Much as he doesn’t want to turn his back on Kunimasa, he needs to find new soup, and he doesn’t want to miss his chance to get an actual eight hours of sleep.

He exhales the smoke. “Well, great as this conversation has been, I’ve got things to do, so I’m going now. Have a good rest of your life, since it’ll probably be at least another five years before we run into each other.” Hopefully. Norio could really do without these awkward interruptions to his otherwise busy-boring life.

He turns to leave, and suddenly there’s a hand at his elbow. “Wait-“

Norio rips his arm out of the hold. “Stop grabbing me,” he says firmly, just shy of shouting. He glances at Kunimasa out of the corner of his eye and sees him put his hands back in his pockets and take a step back.

“Kunimasa,” Norio says, exasperated. “Why are you _here_?”

Kunimasa hunches his shoulders. “Can I buy you some soup?”

“What?”

Kunimasa looks at Norio and asks a little more firmly, “Can I buy you some soup? Since it’s kind of my fault your first batch got ruined?” He looks distastefully at his shoes, which are splattered with the house special.

Norio pauses for a moment. Kunimasa is doing pretty well at avoiding the question, but there’s no way he came out of his way from wherever he is these days to have this specific conversation. “Thanks, but I can buy my own soup. Are you going to tell me the real reason you’re here? Because if not, I’d rather just go home.”

Kunimasa looks at Norio and licks his lips. Norio meets his gaze steadily, and finally Kunimasa says, “I just…” he pauses for a second, then looks away and wipes his hand down his face. In a smaller voice, he finishes, “Wanted to see you.”

Norio feels his heart start to soar, and crushes the little bastard back between his ribs where he belongs. Then he takes a second to feel a little embarrassed on Kunimasa’s behalf. “You’re a bad actor.” Because Kunimasa is not the kind of guy to go out of his way to talk about feelings, and this is a terrible attempt at subterfuge. Why would he even bother to try? Norio asks again, “Why are you really here?”

Kunimasa looks at Norio, mute, lips a tight, flat line.

“Right,” Norio can’t be bothered to parse this out right now, but he’s certain it’s been even more of a waste of time than he originally feared. “I’m going to go home. You’re going to go back to wherever you came from. Bye, Kunimasa.”

Norio turns to leave, only to hear Kunimasa, again, say, “Wait!”

Norio turns and shrugs, irritated. “What?!”

Then he coughs some more, takes another drag of his cigarette, and really wishes he was able to have this conversation with a bit more dignity. Being sick _sucks_.

“I’m going to walk you home.” Kunimasa says resolutely.

Norio’s hair stands on end. There is no way he’s going to be alone with Kunimasa in his apartment, no way he’s going to lead Kunimasa right to where he lives. “Excuse me?”

“You’re obviously not at your best. So I’ll walk you home.”

Kunimasa steps right into Norio’s space. Norio takes another drag of his cigarette, tilts his head up, and blows the smoke right at Kunimasa’s face. He’s a little disappointed Kunimasa doesn’t cough. Then he says, “No you won’t. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m 21, and I can guarantee I’m able to make my own way home just fine.”

“Just-“ Kunimasa tries to say.

“No.” Norio interrupts. “I’ve made my own way home, on my own, every day, for five years.”

Kunimasa freezes. It’s not so much any kind of specific body language as a sudden stillness in the air. His eyes are a bit wide, shocked.

“And I’m going to continue to do so.” Norio finishes. Then he turns around and walks away, and finally, Kunimasa doesn’t attempt to stop him.

Of course, he takes a right at the crosswalk instead of going left and detours for a couple blocks to make sure he isn’t followed. It never hurts to be too careful.

When Norio gets to his apartment he eats soup right out of the can. He skips his evening shower since he can’t smell himself right now anyway. He stares at his mattress and considers the eventual emotional breakdown he’s probably going to have over this whole thing, then decides he’s tired enough to put it off for another day. In fact, he’s pretty sure he’s asleep before his head hits the pillow.

Of course he forgets to set his alarm and completely sleeps through the first three times his boss at the bakery calls him the next morning to see if he’s still alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Track 2: [Epitaph for My Heart by The Magnetic Fields](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iF4bzf4jytM)
> 
> Kunimasa’s hair and general appearance is meant to be like how he’s shown just before his coming-of-age ceremony in chapter 31. A pic from the specific scene in question is on the reference page. Considering how he’s drawn in the manga there’s no real reason to age up his appearance much, he’s only 23 in this story. 
> 
> I struggled a lot with this chapter. The first chapter to this series is probably the best thing I’ve ever written, and I guess for me nothing was going to live up to that for the next chapter. 
> 
> My apologies for the stilted dialogue. I know Kunimasa is pretty out of character in this chapter, since in the manga he generally acts confident even when what he’s doing is ten shades of stupid. Obviously he’s going to have gone through some character growth and won’t be exactly as he was at eighteen, but he’s also on a societal tier that requires a lot of self-confidence. I’m aiming to get him more in-character in upcoming chapters. 
> 
> Let me know how I’m doing with Norio; since I’ve established his thought process and what he’s been through I like to think I’m pulling him off better. Constructive criticism is always welcome.


	3. Crawling Through Ashpits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Norio opens his eyes, turns his head to the side. His skin feels clammy. He’s sticky under his armpits and inside his elbows, gummy in the corners of his eyes. His upper back hurts and he still can’t breathe very well, but has the vague impression it was much worse the last time he took stock. There’s a faint soreness in his hand, which he quickly figures out is an IV. There’s also what looks vaguely like a plastic clothespin clamped on the end of his index finger, a cord on its other end snaking out of his immediate vision. Hospital, then. 
> 
> Norio tries to turn over, relieve some of the irritating ache in his upper back, when he spies someone sitting in a chair to his right. 
> 
> “Shiro?”

There are bricks on Norio’s chest. He tries to move his hand to shove them off - he needs to breathe - but only encounters blankets. He’s shivering from cold. Maybe he needs another blanket? His hand flops onto his forehead, his face is wet. Sweat? Tears? Perhaps he needs to take the blanket off. But he doesn’t have any energy anyway, and his hand slides to lie on the bed next to his ear.

There’s lights, voices. The blankets are gone; he’s shoved to sit upright. It makes it a little easier to breathe, but then he’s back on the floor. His arm is grabbed, lifted over somebody’s shoulders and he’s pulled to his feet, but the floor keeps slipping out from under him.

Things drift in and out. There’s wind outside. Dark, dark, he’s drowning. People are surrounding him, lifting him up. The world is wavering, rocking.

He thinks he sees Kunimasa. Everything always comes back to Kunimasa. His head is hazy, hasn’t been right since the scooter accident when he was sixteen. Didn’t he tell Kunimasa to go? Or did Kunimasa get rid of him?

There’s waves lapping at the shore. He never did take to swimming again, no point. There’s a repetitive whooshing sound, back and forth, and he focuses on that for a bit –

-He’s dragged back under, where it’s dark. He still can’t breathe, but it doesn’t seem so distressing now. He’s naked, sitting cross-legged, with his true self curled in his lap, rubbing his hairy little cat-monkey face all over his human thighs. On the outskirts of the nice, dark place there’s shapes, voices-

_Life is no/big thing in the universe/It is the only thing--/always half-way there/crawling through ashpits/blooming/in the hell of it._

\- The voices don’t matter; they can’t reach where he is. This is nice, safe. Everything smells reassuringly neutral. He curls up in his own lap, there’s fingers in his fur, petting him in long sweeps from head to hind, over and over. When was the last time someone… last time… it’s so nice.

Norio opens his eyes, turns his head to the side. His skin feels clammy. He’s sticky under his armpits and inside his elbows, gummy in the corners of his eyes. His upper back hurts and he still can’t breathe very well, but has the vague impression it was much worse the last time he took stock. There’s a faint soreness in his hand, which he quickly figures out is an IV. There’s also what looks vaguely like a plastic clothespin clamped on the end of his index finger, a cord on its other end snaking out of his immediate vision. Hospital, then.

Norio tries to turn over, relieve some of the irritating ache in his upper back, when he spies someone sitting in a chair to his right.  

“Shiro?”

Shiro looks up from the papers on his lap to Norio. There’s little room for doubt its him, he’s got the same hair style as he had in high school, is still clean-shaven, and is wearing neutral black business pants and a blue button up shirt, black tie loosened so the knot is a few inches down from his neck. He’s got papers spread all over the bench next to him, a pen held in one hand.

 “Ha, Norio.” Shiro’s eyes are warm, his smile genuine. He fumbles his papers a bit and a few fall on the floor. “It’s good to see you awake. Give me a minute, the medical staff want to look you over as soon as you wake up.”

Shiro gathers up the papers and stuffs them in several manila folders before getting up and leaving the room. Norio still feels a bit woozy, and finds himself watching the clouds move slowly behind the glass of his window. There’s a little voice in the back of his mind saying he should be more concerned about Shiro being in his hospital room, but after the sudden reappearance of Hidekuni and Kunimasa, well, if anyone else was going to show up Shiro is one of the more preferable options. The little voice starts to get louder, and Norio ignores it in favor of watching the clouds morph into different shapes as they hover slowly across the glass.

Shiro shows back up with a nurse and a doctor. The nurse is a woman probably a little older than him, with her hair pulled up in a severe bun. The doctor is an even older woman, slightly stooped, probably near retirement. Her white hair is wavy, and hovers around her head like dandelion fluff. She’s wearing a pair of pink cat-eye glasses.

The nurse gives him a quick run-down of the room, points to the attached bathroom, and tells him how to order meals since lunch is not over yet. She starts to take out a tablet and look at the machines, only for the doctor to shoo her out of the room and volunteer to take his vitals while speaking with him.

The skinny old doctor pulls up a wheeled stool. She sits on it gingerly, introduces herself as Doctor Mori, shines a light in his eyes, takes his pulse, and he finds himself at-ease with her calm, businesslike demeanor.

After tapping some final information onto the tablet she informs him he has pneumonia.

“Ah, I knew I had a bad cold,” Norio admits. “But I had no idea it was that bad.”

“Some people don’t until they end up here.” The doctor continues, “Normally the stubborner ones.”

She looks at him over the frames of her glasses. “And it’s unusual to see it in someone from your age group. I’m afraid having come down with it once, you’re going to be more susceptible in the future. I’m told you smoke?”

“Ah, yes.” Norio confirms, twisting his fingers together. “I picked it up about two years ago.”

“How many cigarettes per week?”

“About a pack a week? Sometimes two.”

The doctor frowns. “I would advise you quit. It would significantly lower your risk of a reoccurrence, and we can prescribe something to help with the withdrawal symptoms. A lot of people smoke for different reasons. If you don’t mind my asking, could you please share your primary reasons for smoking? It might help us figure out which method would work best for you. For example, some people take it up for something to do with their hands, others find it helps with mood fluctuations.”

“Ah well, probably for stress, and to help me stay awake sometimes?” Norio is kind of wishing he had something to do with his fingers, or somewhere else to look. He’s not used to having this type of focused attention directed at him for any length of time.

“We might consider setting you up with some nicotine patches then, to help with the withdrawal.” The doctor writes something on the tablet, then returns her attention to him. “We might also refer you to a support group, they can be helpful for learning to cope with any stressors that pop up during the adjustment.” Norio cringes internally, doubtful he’d have the time, or be comfortable being in close quarters with so many people.

“Anyway,” Doctor Mori continues. “Perhaps you weren’t aware, as I get the impression you’ve been away from society for a bit, but most madararui find the smell offensive. Cutting the habit will widen your prospective mating pool.”

Norio chokes on his own spit and glances frantically at Shiro, who moves from the wall he’d been leaning against to thrust a bottled water at him. Norio twists of the cap and swallows the water in big gulps.

Once he regains his breath he bursts out, “How do you know about that!”

The doctor blinks at him. Her eyes are artificially wide behind her lenses. “About what?”

“That I’m a-“ He pauses, then lowers his voice to a whisper. “A returner to ancestry.”

The doctor hands him a pillow to hug against his chest until he gets himself back under control. He clutches it gratefully. “I may be an old lady, but us dogs still have good smell even with age. I would have known as soon as I walked into your room.” She taps the side of one nostril, “I may be just a light seed but this nose doesn’t miss much. However, your case was transferred to me specifically as soon as we found your files in the system.”

Norio is suddenly distracted by Shiro twitching against the wall.

Doctor Mori continues, “I’ll admit they were a bit out of date, but they clearly showed you were previously a ward of the Madarame family, and contacting them overrides contacting your family given your unique situation. Monkeys don’t know to give a different prescription level to a snake eye than a nekomata, for example.”

Norio glares at Shiro. “Is that why you’re-“

“As for the drowsiness you mentioned,” Doctor Mori continues, “About how much sleep would you say you get a night?”

“Ah…” Norio drops his eyes back to his lap. He considers lying, but isn’t sure it would do any good, so he barrels on with the truth. “About three to five hours, depending on when I get out of my evening job. I normally have Tuesdays off from all of my jobs, so I sleep about ten hours Monday night, and go to bed early so I have another six or seven before going in to work Wednesday morning. And then sometimes I can get more depending on what other days off I get. It’s the rush season, so I’ve been getting called in a lot.”

The doctor narrows her eyes. “How many businesses do you assist with?”

Norio clenches his fists. It’s not information he usually shares, with good reason.

“Three,” he admits.

The doctor pauses a minute, then asks, “You own these businesses?”

“No…” Norio says, a bit baffled by the assumption. “I do morning prep at the bakery, and I’m a host at one restaurant and a waiter at the other.”

“I advise you to drop at least one of those,” the doctor says flatly. “I don’t know what you’ve done to end up those kinds of financial straits, but you need to lighten your load or I’ll see you here again in a matter of weeks.” She writes some more on her tablet, pauses, and then says a bit more carefully. “I imagine there’s some reason for why you’re living the way you are, but honestly the best thing would be to mend your bridges with the Madarame’s or whoever else you know in madararui society and see if they can set you up with a match. There’s no reason for someone of your position in our society to be living this kind of life.”

Norio curls his lip and spits out contemptuously, “I’d rather continue as I have than spend the rest of my life as breeding stock.”

There’s a clatter as something drops in the corner of the room. Norio turns to look but is distracted by the doctor pulls the pillow out of his arms and into his lap. She’s looking at him carefully, an artificial stillness in her features, like someone trying to calm a startled deer. Behind her, Shiro is looking at him with wide, wide eyes, mouth open in mute shock.

Doctor Mori picks up the tablet and writes a few more notes. “I’m going to refer you to individual counseling with a madararui therapist. I’ll make sure you have their information and can schedule an appointment before you check out.”

“…Thanks.” Norio says, because there’s no polite way to inform the doctor that he would almost rather cut off his own toes than see a therapist who will likely try to convince him that being breeding stock is a desirable life goal.

“In any case,” Doctor Mori continues, “You’ve got at least two weeks to consider which job you want to drop.”

“Two weeks?”

“Of medically mandated time off, perhaps more depending on how your check-ups go. I expect you to spend much of it sleeping. Since you’re awake and your fever appears to be under control we are going to release you in the next couple hours. It is advised that you not stay alone; a friend or relative may help make sure you are eating regularly, and they will likely notice if your symptoms backslide before you do.” The doctor looks at him over the top of her glasses for a second. Norio swallows and nods, then breaks eye contact to look at the sheets. He choose to not mention that he doesn’t have anywhere to go but back to his apartment, considering how his last visit with his parents went.

The doctor continues, “You’ve already been on antibiotics for 24 hours, so you aren’t contagious unless you cough on someone or share fluids directly. We of course recommend that you be especially careful around people in higher risk groups. By that I mean the elderly, children, and people with compromised immune systems, such as pregnant women or men.”

Norio coughs a bit, _pregnant men_. “Right,” he chokes out in a small voice.

The doctor tells him a nurse will be back to check on him soon, to make sure his fever is staying down, and then they will discuss discharging him. She waits a second, and after he nods she gathers her tablet and stands stiffly to leave the room. She nods to Shiro on her way out, who returns the gesture, then she appears to glance at the corner behind Norio’s bed. He cranes his head a bit, is there a machine over there he hadn’t seen? But before he can figure it out Shiro is clearing his throat and sitting on the little wheeled stool the doctor just vacated.

“So, Norio.”

Norio nods his head mutely. He’s still reeling from the discussion with the doctor, he’s _tired_ , he just slept for who knows how long, and feels like he could go right back to it. “Shiro?”

Shiro folds his hands on the side of the bed. “Regarding where you will stay during your recovery…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Sleep Alone by Bat for Lashes](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tWupluCP0rs)
> 
> The italicized quote is an excerpt from the poem "Life" by Jack Mueller, as found in his book [Amor Fati](http://www.lithicpress.com/index.php/our-catalog/37-amor-fati). He, like many other poets these days, is only published through small press, and you won’t find this book locally unless you live in certain areas of Colorado. If you are interested, you can find more examples of his work at the link and on his author page with the publisher.
> 
> I tried to work in more about Doctor Mori but alas, there’s only so much you can do with an OC who’s likely to only appear once. Since the manga shows that people can be different dog breeds, I envision her as a poodle (I’ve been watching Yuri on Ice like all the other red-blooded fandom whores, so poodles are on my mind). 
> 
> As usual, no promises on when the next chapter will be out, but we should all be looking forward to it because I’m finally going to get to reveal a big surprise regarding what some of the characters have been up to. I have plans. Evil, dastardly plans.
> 
> PS: I’ve got a Tumblr now, see link below. I occasionally post updates regarding the status of this fic or some of the weird shit from the Sex Pistols manga, though mostly I use it to reblog stuff related to other fandoms. If anyone wants to talk I may well be more up for that than the grad school work I'm 92% guaranteed to be procrastinating.


	4. Accidents

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Norio comes to find the past five years have done Shiro well in a specific sense: he’s managed to hone his self-effacing, subtle turn of phrase into a weapon.

Norio comes to find the past five years have done Shiro well in a specific sense: he’s managed to hone his self-effacing, subtle turn of phrase into a weapon. This is why he finds himself a bit blindsided when Shiro informs him in the kindest, quietest way, that Norio has two options. First, he can stay with Shiro and Yonekuni, and once he’s well they won’t stand in the way of his return home. Second, he can insist on returning home, and Yonekuni’s family members will go out of their way to set aside their daily lives and take turns babysitting him.

Norio mentions that he could also just go back to his apartment and let his coworkers check on him, or go stay with his parents. Shiro takes of his glasses, polishes them on the tail of his shirt, and asks Norio if he thinks, after the conversation he just witnessed with the doctor, that Shiro believes Norio has any intention other than just going home and hoping things resolve themselves on their own.

Correction, Norio has one option that sucks, and an alternate that sucks more.

It turns out Shiro wrangled his address out of the manager at his morning job, Mrs. Sato. Turns out when you suddenly start showing up late or skipping work after weeks of continual illness, especially after being an exemplary employee for over a year, a person might take notice. She was the one who checked on him, and found him unconscious at his apartment and got his neighbors to help her lug him to her car so she could drive him to the hospital. He’s going to end up hauling so many bags of flour once he gets back to work, to make up for the inconvenience and the worry. In any case, he definitely doesn’t want a line of madararui trailing in and out of his apartment at all hours.

He’s still a bit upset about being tracked down. It turns out when Norio disappeared all those years ago, Karen used her influence over Makio to distribute paperwork to the hospitals through the madararui government. It basically said he was a ward of the Madarame’s while being taught madararui culture and life skills under Shinobu. The paperwork was conveniently never rescinded once he reached adulthood.

Shiro insists it was probably because the family had a lot going on at the time, and they forgot. Norio doesn’t believe him, but doesn’t correct him. It’s a bit touching to know someone was actually worried after he disappeared, even if the end product has brought great irritation to Norio’s life.

In any case, he begs the nursing staff into letting him grab a shower in the hospital before he’s discharged, and then he and Shiro stop by his apartment so he can pack a bag. The walk up the stairs exhausts him, even though he’s only on the third story. Shiro’s face is briefly troubled when he takes a first glance around the apartment, but he quickly schools his expression into neutrality. Norio’s not sure why he might have been bothered by the place, other than being about the size of a sardine box and a bit disheveled there’s nothing wrong with it. The apartment is small, but it’s not as if it harbors mold or anything like that. Shiro starts texting on his phone, and Norio takes it as his que to grab his worn black backpack and check his usual supplies. He finds himself considering the bottle of cologne, and pokes his head out of the bathroom.

“Hey, Shiro?”

Shiro looks up from his phone. “Hm?”

“How are we getting to your place?”

“Oh,” Shiro looks a bit surprised by the question. “We can catch the last train if we leave in the next hour.”

Norio nods and ducks into the bathroom to change into a pair of black skinny jeans and a black polo, covered by a green plaid flannel shirt. He sprays himself with the cologne, then finishes loading his spare clothes and cell phone charger into his backpack.

He goes to tell Shiro he’s all packed only to find him staring out the living room/bedroom window with a troubled look on his face.

“Hey, Norio?” the question is a bit timid, and he can tell Shiro is gauging his face for his reaction.

“Yeah?”

Shiro stares off behind Norio’s shoulder, then meets his eyes again. “If you don’t mind my asking, why the cologne? I’ve not noticed any issue with your soul’s appearance since I arrived, and you’ve been sick and unconscious for a good portion of that…”

“Oh,” well, that’s a bit of an uncomfortable topic. Norio tries to hold Shiro’s eyes, but it’s too difficult to be steady and hold his gaze, considering some of the memories it brings up.

“I don’t have issues with my soul’s appearance anymore, and monkey’s don’t seem to notice anything, but sometimes madararui’s notice anyway. I think they can smell it.” Norio coughs a bit, scratches his arm, lugs the backpack over his shoulders. “I’ve had some unpleasant encounters in the past, but as long as I wear the cologne, nobody seems to notice. Or at least they don’t bother me nearly as much.”

“Huh,” is all Shiro says. “I’ll have to swing that by Shinobu. I have a better sense of smell than even most dogs, and all I can smell that you’re a madararui, and that you’re sick and somewhat distressed.”

Norio just shrugs his shoulders. “Don’t we have to catch the train soon?”

“Ah, yeah,” and it’s back to the same kind smile. “Let’s go. You look beat.”

***

Norio is no longer able to let his guard down in public places, and as a result, despite how exhausted he is, he’s completely unable to sleep on the train. He passes the time playing around on his phone and having short conversations with Shiro, getting caught up on some of what he’s missed. It turns out Shiro just got a law degree and started working for a big firm, though he’s of course not handling big cases. Yonekuni got a degree in journalism of all things, Hidekuni is studying to be a translator, Manami is not yet out of high school, Shinobu spends a lot of time in France with his husband, who Norio gathers is somewhat influential over there, though he’s puzzled as to why mentioning the guy makes Shiro seem a bit pale and nervous.

They carefully don’t mention Kunimasa, until Shiro tells him just before they hit the threshold that actually, Kunimasa lives there too.

“What!” Norio goes from ready to pass out to wide awake and furious in milliseconds. The sudden pitch in his voice of course upsets his protesting throat and lungs, and it takes a bit for him to calm the coughing fit.

“Eh well,” Shiro scratches the back of his head, his best “don’t be mad at me” smile plastered on his face. “Kunimasa kind of inherited the place when he took his title. And we’ve come to find he and Yonekuni do best when they can chew each other out by just walking across the house…”

After a second of consideration, Norio finds he’s not surprised. For all they didn’t seem to have a lot in common, Yonekuni and Kunimasa were always in each other’s pockets.

“But don’t worry!” Shiro waves his hands back and forth in front of his face, as if to dispel Norio’s ire. Norio is solidifying his suspiction that Shiro’s once-honest kindly expression is a ruse, perfected in law school to placate panicking clients and inscrutable judges. “I’m going to put you in a bedroom by us, his room is down the hall. Besides, he works a lot, so it’s not like he’s home all day.” Shiro pauses for a moment, then adds, “Or even every day.”

Norio is very much not okay with this, but it’s not like he’s got it in him to head all the way back home, much as he would really, really like to. He contemplates this new information for a moment, then decides if he’s not going to get what he wants, he’s going to give Shiro a dose of his own medicine. He asks, in his most calculatingly mild voice, “I’m not going to be next door to you guys, right? Because I kind of remember what it was like hearing you through the wall and-“

Shiro’s face goes beet red. “Ah, no, there’s an empty one across the hall!”

Norio keeps his smile to himself and shrugs his backpack higher on his shoulder. He kind of wants to argue about this some more, but his legs are feeling wobbly and he’s rapidly reaching the point where he needs to sit down while he can still make the decision for himself. “Ok, lead the way then.”

On the outside the house is bland, modern and normal looking. There’s a plain wooden fence, hiding what he imagines is a small yard. The house itself is painted grey with white trim and a darker grey roof. It’s newer and bigger than the house he grew up in, but doesn’t stand out and scream “money” the way Norio, in his admittedly limited experience, has come to associate with properties held by older madararui families.

Inside he encounters polished hardwood floors, cream-colored walls, wood furniture and leather couches. Down the hallway from the entrance he can glimpse the kitchen; there appears to be a lot of marble and stainless steel. The inside of the house definitely screams the residents are better off, potentially better off than most. But then again, it’s not like there’s a lot of damage Norio can do to marble counters or leather couches. It seems a bit glossy and cold, though.

Shiro opens his phone. “It’s about dinner time, why don’t you set your bag by the wall here and sit at the island,” he indicates down the hall. “I’ll see what we have in the fridge.”

Norio nods, drops his backpack and boosts himself onto the chair at the island. He notices the upper cabinets are tall enough he might have trouble reaching stuff up high; definitely a western house made for tall people. Shiro warms up takeout, and Norio leans his elbow on the marble island and props his head against his hand. He’s half asleep by the time Shiro sets a plate of reheated spaghetti by Norio’s elbow with the appropriate cutlery.

“Sorry,” Shiro says, “We’re all pretty busy, we kind of live on takeout unless Yonekuni feels generous.”

Norio has a mouthful of noodles at this point, so he just replies with, “Hm?”

“He’s been working from home recently,” Shiro explains.

Norio swallows the noodles. “Ah. Well, it’s not like I’m much better anyway. I mostly eat rejected or extra food from my jobs.”

Shiro nods, his own mouth full of what looks like some kind of lasagna. They fall into companionable silence, just the sounds of quiet eating and scraping cutlery. Norio has about finished his plate when he hears someone come down the stairs.

“Hey Shiro, I didn’t realize you were back until just now. Who’s with you?”

 Shiro swallows his food and turns, Norio does the same.

It’s Yonekuni who enters the kitchen, still tall and broad, with his hair grown past his shoulders. He’s wearing a pair of black pants and a loose blue t-shirt, but what stands out most is that his stomach is noticeably distended, round and high.

Yonekuni pauses in the doorway, looks at Norio, then back to Shiro. “You didn’t tell me you were bringing him home.” He props a hip against the door, his arms crossed over the bulge in his stomach.

“Oh, uh, I sent a text.” Shiro volunteers. “About three hours ago.”

Yonkuni runs a hand through his hair. “Sorry. I must’ve left the phone on silent.”  Then he looks at Norio and whistles, “Hidekuni warned me, but I still barely believe it, little Norinin all grown up?” He walks into the kitchen and advances towards the fridge.

Norio shrugs his shoulders and digs a hair tie out of his coat pocket. He left his hair down after his shower, but it’s dry now, and he prefers it out of the way. Too lazy to fetch his comb out of his backpack, he does the best he can fingercombing it before tying it out of the way.

Yonekuni is eating a second container of spaghetti right out of the box, still cold. He swallows his food and whistles, “You’ve become a bit of a punk too. Good for you.”

Norio shrugs again. Yonekuni busies himself without another mouthful of spaghetti and goes to walk past Norio just as he’s reaching to fiddle his phone out of his pocket. Norio’s arm brushes against Yonekuni’s middle on the way down, and Norio freezes. He’d been carefully keeping his mind off Yonekuni’s stomach, told himself it was probably weight gain from working a desk job. Never mind that even with the loose shirt it was obvious Yonekuni’s stomach was kind of standing up in a way most people’s weight gain didn’t.

But Yonekuni’s stomach was firm in a way a beer gut definitely wasn’t, and before Norio could control himself he let out a little squeak.

Yonekuni froze, his gaze hardened. “Hey, got something to say.”

“No, no.” Norio replied immediately. “Definitely not. Just kind of surprised.”

“Why?” Yonekuni demanded. “You know about parasites and all that.”

“Uhm, Yonekuni.” Shiro is frantically grabbing for his arm, probably trying to pull him out of Norio’s space. “Maybe now isn’t the time-”

But Norio can’t keep his mouth shut, and digs his own grave. “It’s because I know how parasites work that I am really, really surprised it’s you!”

“Hey!” Yonekuni raises his voice louder, “I didn’t mean to agree to this. It just kind of happened.”

Shiro takes off his glasses and rubs his hand across his eyes, then says flatly, “You are definitely the one who agreed to this, I had no part in that.”

“It was an accident! And you agreed later!”

Norio claps his hands over his ears, lest his brain melt into the floor. “There is definitely no way that something like this can be an accident!”

“It is not my fault,” Yonekuni says, practically yelling, “That I was tricked by that evil wi-“

“SHUT UP!” The voice comes from down the hall. At the bottom of the stairs is Kunimasa, wearing a pair of blue cotton pajama pants and no shirt. Even flustered as he is, Norio can’t help but notice that Kunimasa has definitely not let himself go _at all_ in the last five years.

“If you wake up Masayoshi, I’m going to kill all of you! And you!” Kunimasa points at Yonekuni, “Especially you!”

Shiro puts both hands up in the air, imitating the universal sign of peace. “Sorry Kunimasa. It won’t happen again.”

Kunimasa huffs and goes back upstairs. Norio relaxes minutely, glad he either didn’t notice, or didn’t think Norio was worth addressing at just this moment.

Shiro tugs Yonekuni to sit in the chair on his other side, then turns to Norio and takes a deep breath. “Any questions I can answer?”

Norio pauses for a moment. “Tons, but can we deal with them tomorrow? Because really all I want is to sleep for twelve hours.” He pushes his empty plate across the bar for emphasis.

 “You and me both,” Yonekuni mutters.

Shiro ignores him. “That sounds fine, Norio. I’m sure this is longer than you’re supposed to be awake at a stretch right now anyway.”

Yeah, no kidding. Norio feels like he could go to sleep on the floor.

Shiro puts his and Norio’s dishes in the sink and walks down the hall to pick up Norio’s backpack. “It’s just up here.”

Norio nods and follows him. The room he’s led to has a lot of boxes in it, many of them pink. He ignores them, files the thoughts they bring up to the back of his mind. He has no intention of asking, though he guesses the answer is obvious anyway. There’s a double bed made up in the corner. Norio collapses onto it it and rolls himself into the covers. He has no intention of getting up other to pee if he can avoid it.

Shiro sets his backpack on the floor and turns off the light. “Good night, Norio. See you in the morning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Track 4: [Tobacco Island by Flogging Molly](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot3aPHM8Kc8)
> 
> Reference pic of Kunimasa's house is up on the reference page. 
> 
> As for how Yonekuni ended up the one pregnant, I'm contemplating an eventual side story to illustrate the conversation that led to him getting "tricked" into it, and the awkward sex that followed. If that doesn't happen I'll at least try to get some more explanation in a later chapter here. But the short of it is that Yonekuni really is Maximillian's son.
> 
> Some of us have been discussing the manga in the comments. I've also been trying to periodically post about it on tumblr. The most recent one is about Makio's lack of coherent forethought (and her weirdness in general), if anyone wants to check it out.


	5. Tamagoyaki

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Norio rubs his eyes a bit, stretches, his stomach grumbles, and a small yip follows. Norio blinks and looks down.  
> A small orange fox is laying on his stomach.

There were no dreams, at least none that Norio would remember, for which he was grateful. It wasn’t likely to happen again any time soon; it never did.

He wakes to heaviness on his chest and stomach, and the sun slanting over his face through the curtains. The windows weren’t placed so the sun hit his face in his bedroom at his apartment. It takes him a bit to remember where he is, and what had happened. He groans and throws an arm over his eyes. It’s good he slept too hard for dreams; the next couple weeks were liable to be a nightmare all on their own.

Norio rubs his eyes a bit, stretches, his stomach grumbles, and a small yip follows. Norio blinks and looks down.

A small orange fox is laying on his stomach. Well, that made more sense than the pneumonia, which should only explain weight in his chest. He hesitantly pokes the fox in the side with his finger. It hunches around its middle, then relaxes and opens its eyes to stare him square in the face.

“I’m getting up,” Norio explains, “you might want to get off before I dump you on the bed.”

The fox huffs, shakes its head and rolls onto the bed. Perhaps it’s meant to be a graceful maneuver, but really it’s a bit clumsy and uncoordinated. All the same, it lays there lazily for a bit, then sits up and, instead of a fox it is suddenly a small child, a boy, perhaps not quite school age, sitting cross legged on his bed. He is wearing a plain blue t-shirt and a pair of jeans with no socks. The child has wavy black hair, slanted yellow eyes, pale skin, and freckles all over his face and arms.

“Hi!” the kid chirps. “I’m Masayoshi, what’s your name? And why are you sleeping in my uncles’ babies room?”

“Ah,” Norio replies, and stares for a second. He recalled Kunimasa yelling about not waking up someone with that name the previous night. The kid has Kunimasa’s eye color and shape, and Norio figures immediately just what he’s looking at. He restrains an involuntary flinch. He shouldn’t be surprised, it’s not like he’d had any delusions about Kunimasa’s ease and openness with sexual partners before they got together. He just hadn’t expected this kind of reminder to come and slap him in the face.

Norio takes a deep breath and buries the thoughts for another time. It wasn’t the kid’s fault for being born.

“My name is Norio,” he replies.

“Nooorioooo,” the kid responded, like he was tasting the word. He bobs his head once. “Nice to meet you. Do you know who’s making breakfast?”

Norio’s stomach gurgles at the thought. “Don’t your parents make you breakfast?”

Masayoshi shakes his head. “Daddy makes breakfast on Sundays, when he’s home. The rest of the time my uncles make breakfast, but they are still in bed and-” he twists his fingers together, and Norio can almost see fox ears flat against his head. “There’s noises on the other side of the door, and if there’s noises I’m not supposed to bother them.”

“Ah,” Norio feels his face go red, but still can’t help himself. “What kind of noises?”

Masayoshi wrinkles his nose and looks at Norio with confusion plain in his eyes. “Like some yelling, and thumping. I think maybe they’re bouncing a ball and someone got hurt, but every time I ask they say they were just fixing the bed…” He trails off for a second, then adds, “I’ve looked all over for a ball in their room and I can never find one.” He looks genuinely stumped.

Norio feels his whole body shaking with suppressed laughter and quickly composes himself. “Ah,” Norio thinks for a minute. “Where is your daddy right now,” he implores.

“I thiiiiiink he’s still getting ready. But he might already be gone. I don’t know.” Masayoshi scratches his arm, presses a few freckles, watches the skin discolor and return to normal, then turns back to Norio.

“Right.” Of course, after getting strong-armed into coming over out of concern for his health, he’s going to end up making breakfast for himself and a kid on the first day. The Madarame family is the _worst._ He takes a deep breath, “Show me where the bathroom is, and then I’ll come see if I can help you with breakfast.”

***

There’s no cereal in the house. How are these people raising a kid with no cereal? Norio crosses his fingers that there’s something useful in the refrigerator, and a bit of snooping reveals cold rice, eggs, tofu, and a few other things that might be useful. Between that and the cupboards Norio figures he has enough to throw together something simple. He tosses the rice in a pan with some water to warm back up. He slices scallions and cubes tofu, then adds them to a pot with miso broth. He keeps Masayoshi busy by having him put items he no longer needs back in the refrigerator or the trash. Masayoshi seems happy enough to do it, then pulls up a chair and swings his legs while he watches Norio cook.

Norio cracks eggs into a bowl with dashi, soy sauce, and mirin and whisks it all together, then pours it into the, thankfully-rectangular, pan he found with the cookware, and waits with a pair of cooking chopsticks to poke any air bubbles that show up.

“What are you making,” Masayoshi asks.

“Rice with miso soup and tamagoyaki.” Norio turns the heat to the lowest setting on the rice, and checks the soup, but it has a bit longer to go. Judging the bottom of the egg to have set, he carefully rolls it and pours in more egg, lifting the omelet so it will spread underneath.

“What’s tamagoyaki?”

Norio spares a second to shoot negative feelings towards Kunimasa and everyone else who feeds this kid. “Your education in traditional breakfast foods has been neglected,” Norio tells him bluntly. “It’s a kind of omelet, but rolled up so there are layers. If you like eggs, you’ll probably like it.”

“Oh,” Masayoshi says. “Ok,” and continues swinging his legs.

Tamagoyaki is not a particularly time-intensive dish, but it’s not as quick as, say, scrambled eggs. Norio ends up fielding several more questions as he layers more eggs until the dish reaches his desired thickness.

“Mr. Norio, why are you staying in the baby’s room?”

“I need to stay here a while because I’ve been sick.”

“Oh.” A pause, “Mr. Norio, are you really, really sick?”

“The doctors gave me medicine, so I’m getting better. I just need to sleep a lot.”

It goes on and on. The most awkward one turns out to be:

“Mr. Norio, why do you smell so good?”

Norio fumbles the cooking chopsticks so they fall on the floor. He mulls over the question as he tosses them in the sink and fishes out a new pair from a drawer. He didn’t bother to do much more than pee and wash his hands in the bathroom this morning, having figured the scent blockers were a moot point as long as he was confined to the house. Perhaps he should have anticipated the question? Given his previous interactions regarding his scent have all been with people past puberty, it didn’t occur to him as something a child would take note of. Still, he’s not sure how to explain this to a kid, especially taking into account his own tenuous grasp on madararui society and culture.

Finally, he settles with, “I’m a rare type of madararui that smells good to a lot of people. Ask your uncles if you want to know more.” Norio rolls the last egg layer while Masayoshi considers what he’s just been told. He’s just about to open his mouth again when Norio says, “Breakfast is done, go sit at the table and I’ll bring it over.”

“Ok.” Masayoshi obediently hops down and moves his chair while Norio slices the tamagoyaki, plates the food and sets out serving dishes. They both say their thanks for the food and start serving themselves. It’s gratifying to see Masayoshi’s face light up at the first bite of tamagoyaki.

Masayoshi pulls his bowl of soup forward and asks, “Mr. Norio?”

Norio swallows a mouthful of rice, “Yes?”

“Aren’t you a cat madararui? You smell like a cat madararui. I know because I know lots of cat madararui’s. My daddy and Uncle Manami and grandma and grandpa are all cat madararui’s.”

“Ah,” Norio contemplates his own soup, swirling the scallions and tofu with his chopsticks. He needs to keep this as simple as possible. “I’m part nekomata and part monkey.”

Masayoshi’s eyes go wide. “Madararui’s can be part monkey?” He seems unreasonably excited by this bit of information.

“Just me,” Norio quickly adds. “I’m the only one.”

“Oh, so your parents are a cat and a monkey?”

“No, my parents are monkeys. My grandfather or one of my other ancestors was a nekomata.”

“Oh,” Masayoshi seems to muddle through this information for a bit. Finally, his face clears. “Okay,” he says, and shovels an unusually large bite of rice into his mouth.

Norio sighs in relief and slurps his soup before helping himself to another slice of tamagoyaki. Not to pat himself on the back too much, but it turned out pretty good. A thought occurs to him: kids have big mouths, he knows this from all the inappropriate stuff he’s heard them spout in the middle of restaurants, and he doesn’t want a lot of people to know he’s here.

“Masayoshi?”

“Yesh,” Masayoshi answers around a mouth full of rice.

“A lot of people don’t need to know I’m here, but if anyone asks, tell them I’m just a housecat type madararui.”

Masayoshi, mouth full of food, draws his eyebrows together in confusion; it wrinkles the freckles across his face like stars in a swimming pool.

“It’s because I’m too sick for visitors right now,” Norio adds, picking a piece of tofu out of his soup. “And by the time I’m well I’m going to have to go right back to work.”

Masayoshi swallows his food. “Do you work very far away?”

“Yes,” Norio answers. “It’s a few hours by train, and I don’t get much time off.”

“Oh. Why is it so far away?”

“Because that’s where my job is.”

“Huh.” Masayoshi says. “But sometimes my daddy has to go away for work, but he comes back.”

Norio smiles, and hopes Masayoshi is too inexperienced to tell it’s fake. “That’s because most of the time your daddy can still work here, that’s why you live here. But my job is always in the same place, a several hours from here.”

Masayoshi muddles this over for a minute before finally saying, “Okay.” He stuffs more rice in his mouth and picks a few pieces of tofu out of his soup bowl.

There’s a few minutes of silence. Masayoshi seems to have lost interest in the tamagoyaki after his third slice and barely took a few slurps of his soup. He’s in the middle of demolishing the remainder of his rice while Norio serves himself a second slice of tamagoyaki, when footsteps start to come down the stairs.

Norio straightens his posture and makes sure his eyes are trained on the soup. The footsteps come straight towards the dining area, and he hears an achingly familiar voice say, “Masayoshi, did your uncles make you breakfast or-“

The animal I the back of Norio’s mind perks its ears, then curls tighter in its ball. Norio carefully keeps his eyes on his food until he hears Masayoshi say, “Daddy, why are you staring like that?”

Norio glances towards Kunimasa out the corner of his eye, but can only see that he is standing by the entrance to the kitchen. After a few more seconds of silence, by which time he judges things have headed straight into awkward territory, he faces Kunimasa more fully.

Kunimasa is wearing an outfit similar to the time he caught Norio after work: black shoes, black slacks, white button-up shirt. His mouth is a thin line, and his eyes are wide.

Norio becomes suddenly and acutely aware that he’s dressed in rumpled clothes from yesterday, with his hair in a ponytail he slept in and didn’t even bother to brush out, and he hasn’t showered or done anything else to cover his scent. This isn’t how he wanted to face Kunimasa, never mind that he would have preferred not to see him again at all.

Norio can’t seem to break contact with Kunimasa’s unusually wide gaze. He lets his mouth run on autopilot, “I only made enough for two.” It’s a lie, he made enough miso soup for two, but there’s enough tamagoyaki left for at least one and plenty of rice for two more. Nevertheless, he barrels on, “So I suggest you hunt up something else for yourself.”

Kunimasa still doesn’t say anything, and his eyes won’t leave Norio’s face. Norio forcibly jerks his eyes away and stands up, intend on doing _something_ instead of just sitting passively and being watched. “Just so you know, it’s rude to leave a guest to make breakfast…” He trails off and picks up the soup bowls, anything to occupy his hands. Kunimasa might be intent on looking at him for whatever strange reason, but it’s harder to focus on a moving target. “Especially one who was just released from the hospital and was basically blackmailed into coming. If I knew I would be doing the cooking, I would have fought harder to stay at my apartment.”

There’s a small squeak, and Norio sees Masayoshi: his lips flat and white, hands folded politely in his lap and shoulders up around his ears. Norio takes a deep breath, and when he lets it out it feels like all the energy leaves his body. The effort of being stressed from Kunimasa’s attention has taken the few energy reserves he had left.

“Hey, Masayoshi, why don’t you help me clear the breakfast dishes?”

Masayoshi jerks his head yes and grabs a plate before heading towards the sink.

“Norio,” the name is said as if on an exhale. Norio turns his head in Kunimasa’s direction, but keeps his eyes trained on Kunimasa’s shoulder.

“Why are you…” The question peters off, but the intent is clear enough.

Norio pauses for a minute, just to make sure Kunimasa isn’t going to finish the sentence, then exhales again, “It’s a long story. Ask Shiro.” Shiro made this mess, so as far as Norio was concerned, he could do damage control. The bowls are deposited in the sink, then he adds, “He didn’t tell me you were here before I agreed to come.” It seems important to make this clear, though Norio can’t put his finger on why.

If possible, Kunimasa seems to stiffen further at that. He opens his mouth as if to ask something else, but is interrupted by the sound of steps descending the stairs. Norio is busy piling plates in his hands when Shiro and Yonekuni come into the kitchen. He glimpses Yonekuni start talking to Kunimasa and begin leading him toward the door. Kunimasa gets a strange look on his face, brow furrowed, lips pinched in a way that is reminiscent of Masayoshi just minutes earlier. All the same, he follows Yonekuni outside, and Norio is happy enough with the development he considers dropping the stack of plates right there and heading upstairs to nap.

Shiro snags his attention. His hair is damp, and he’s wearing fresh tan slacks and a long-sleeved white shirt with a red sweater vest over it. Norio is envious of him, mostly for the shower, though he isn’t sure if he would have gotten through one on his own without eating first, and now he just wants to go back to sleep. Shiro begins to smile pleasantly, and before he can say much of anything Norio hears a wail and a thud. He looks over his shoulder to see Masayoshi sitting on the floor, crying, “Daddy didn’t say hi or give me a hug and he just left!” He sounds heartbroken, like this is genuinely the worst thing that could ever happen to him.

Norio walks up to Shiro and hands him the pile of plates. Shiro takes it automatically, and Norio quickly tells him, “It’s your turn.”

Shiro doesn’t even bother to reply, and Norio walks right past him and begins ascending the stairs.

It’s not revenge, but it at least feels appropriate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Track 5: [Needing/Getting by Ok Go](https://youtu.be/MejbOFk7H6c)
> 
> How to make tamagoyaki: [here](http://www.justonecookbook.com/tamagoyaki-japanese-rolled-omelette/)
> 
> Most who left comments guessed correctly regarding Masayoshi. I didn't originally intend to devote so much attention to him in this chapter, but I think it works. I can guarantee he is, by far, the most developed OC this fic is going to have. I don't favor OC's in fanfiction, Masayoshi is an exception because he's essential to Kunimasa's side of the 5 year time skip, which will be explained in full later.
> 
> The manga doesn't mention foxes in the madararui heirarchy, but it does mention wolves (Shiro); dogs, wolves, and foxes are all part of the Canidae family, so I think it's theoretically possible for fox madararui to exist. Masayoshi looks like a typical red fox kit. I'll get a pic on the reference page within the next few days. 
> 
> I would like to take a second to thank everyone who has left comments and kudos. Considering the size of the fandom, this fic has received a fantastic amount of attention in a relatively short time span. I don't write for attention, but I do very much enjoy and appreciate the response Calligraphers of Silence has been receiving. I did make an effort to get the this chapter out in time for Christmas, since I know a lot of people appreciate things like that. 
> 
> Here's to hoping the best for everyone else in the upcoming year. The angst won't be stopping for this fic but in RL the whole lot of us deserve a break.
> 
> Edit 03/12/2016: I'm going to break with normal practice and give a big apology for the unusual delay. I've got a post up on my tumblr with an explanation of what I've got going on (which you can feel free to skip over) and the first chunk of the next chapter to prove I'm still alive and haven't forgotten there are people who love this fic <http://ficklestripey.tumblr.com/>.


	6. Dead Man Walking (ft. Kunimasa)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the months after Norio leaves; or, more accurately - after Kunimasa chases him off - Kunimasa comes to accept of the reality of his loss.

In the months after Norio leaves; or, more accurately - after Kunimasa chases him off - Kunimasa comes to accept of the reality of his loss.

Much as his family cares for him, at the base of it, Kunimasa is a tool for the Madarame. He has a specific role to fill, a role he volunteered for when he was still a child. He doesn’t regret it. Seeing Yonekuni come to his own, hesitant happiness with Shiro, Kunimasa regrets less than he might ever have. He would do it again.

All the same, he is a tool. A tool wants for nothing, it merely fulfills its function. He’s meant to lead the madararui, both in action and example; he’s meant to help resolve land, property and business issues, and settle various family, class and racial disputes.

He’s meant to have a proper, high-society, heavy-seed wife, someone devoted who can fulfill the old-generation commitment ceremony with him and, hopefully, produce a large number of children.

The wife he’s expected to pick and Norio are not the same person. In the seconds after Norio agrees to his engagement it suddenly occurs to Kunimasa that, to try and turn Norio, with his clumsiness and social ignorance, into the wife he’s expected to take, would require an irreparable change to his character. Norio leans his face sweetly into Kunimasa’s hand at the same moment Kunimasa accepts that, with or without Norio, he’s set to marry a stranger.

Norio deserves better.

The conversation that follows, the tears in Norio’s eyes, the slight slope of his retreating back: at the time it happened Kunimasa would have sworn it was the most painful thing he would ever live through.

He’s wrong. It gets more painful in the months that follow.

It’s easier to be a tool and not know what it’s like to be a person, to fulfill his purpose and base needs but have no real personal wants, than it is to experience the reverse.

His family questions him, lightly. Yonekuni’s mouth is tight with strain, Shiro looks visibly shaken, Manami keeps his arms folded, his expression uncertain, and Hidekuni avoids him altogether for several weeks. Karen-chan looks at him worriedly from time-to-time, and then gives him another task to do, so his hands are busy.

His mother lines up meetings with prominent families, and makes sure he goes to plenty of social events. It’s agonizing.

He doesn’t try to go to Norio’s house, or seek him out. They all graduate, and he doesn’t see Norio again - except in dreams, which he never tells anyone about.

After some months, life comes to a sort of rhythm. He attends functions: formal dining affairs, property meetings, class disputes. Fathers unashamedly throw their daughters at him as if they are mere livestock, and most of the girls seem happy enough to play along. He wouldn’t have minded before, but the game has lost all appeal now. He learns his alcohol tolerance well enough to pace himself and take the edge off his temper and his tongue, though by the end of many a dinner he’s a bit fuzzy around the edges.

Women follow him even worse than before, pulling him into alcoves and spare rooms wherever they can catch him, and even chasing him to his car or showing up outside his hotel room on a few occasions. Men do it too sometimes, though he finds he’s still not particularly inclined that way: women, and especially Norio, have a special fuck-me scent that doesn’t translate to the rest of the male madararui populace.

In any case, while he’s busy and not really interested like he once was, he’s still a healthy male of his species, and sometimes it’s nice to work off some frustration, even if he’s usually just drunk enough to not remember it very well the next day. At least there don’t seem to be any new rumors regarding a decline in his bedroom prowess.

One day he wakes up, and Norio is downstairs with Shiro, talking and laughing happily. He turns and sees Kunimasa, and smiles brightly. “There’s coffee and pastries in the kitchen,” he says. Kunimasa is so indescribably overjoyed to have Norio after everything they’ve been through.

Then he wakes up, and there’s a small _snick_ as the bathroom door closes. A woman with long, curly red hair is adjusting her top, putting on her shoes and grabbing her purse off the floor. It must’ve been the hair, he thinks groggily, and it comes back to him in snatches: long, curly red hair and freckles _everywhere._ She’d approached him on his way out of a social function, and he’d agreed just for the novelty. He interacts with a lot more foreigners than most people in Japan, but she was exotic even then.

“Are you awake?” she asks, in slightly accented English. He can’t quite place her origins from her speech, French maybe?

“Go back to sleep,” she says softly. “I’m just showing myself out.”

He muzzily closes his eyes and drifts back off as the hotel door closes, and doesn’t think much more of it.

He doesn’t find until nearly a year later, when he’s contacted by an official from Canada, that he’d gotten sloppy with more than just alcohol.

***

The child, Elijah, is two months old, far too young to maintain any sort of human appearance. He looks like a typical fox kit, madararui or no: orange coat, white underbelly, black ears, forelegs, and paws. He curls up tightly in his maternal grandmother’s arms when Kunimasa goes to sniff him and, if he really searches for it, Kunimasa can detect the barest scent of heavy seed cat essence under the overwhelming fox musk. It confirms nothing for him, it could have been any heavy-seed cat going by just that, but the paternity test says different.

He never finds out why Audrey, the child’s mother, chose to not contact him previously. Most would have jumped at the chance to hold some sway over him, especially as a means of collecting substantial child support. He’s likely to never know, and Kunimasa vaguely registers the government official speaking patronizingly of Canadian winters and a lack of snow tires while Kunimasa focuses on the baby, his _son_. Kunimasa is glad the woman left the child with her parents before taking the ill-fated drive.

For various reasons nobody in the maternal family is capable of raising a newborn, and Kunimasa isn’t keen to leave his child with no personal say in his upbringing besides. He specifies a proper Madarame name for the paperwork and lets the lawyers handle the rest. The plane flight back to Japan features a solid hour of Masayoshi resting, which Kunimasa uses to read the pamphlets given to him by the Canadian officials. The reading material advises he take an obscene amount of time off to bond with the baby. He sends the information directly to Karen-chan and asks her to have his mother handle it, which is probably the only reason he manages to score a full month’s absence from his responsibilities.

Kunimasa has experience with small children, but none with babies so young. Masayoshi cries almost the entire rest of the way home, and no changing or burping or offered bottle calms him down. His soul’s appearance shows through persistently, and as such Kunimasa is unable to free him from the confines of his covered car seat. Kunimasa fields dirty looks from the other passengers and becomes progressively run down the rest of the trip. Yonekuni and Shiro meet him at his apartment looking disgustingly spry and well-rested, and get to see first-hand just how frustrated and worn he’s become. Yonekuni directs him towards the couch and picks the baby up from the carrier with a gruff, “Calm down, brat.”

“Yonekuni,” Shiro says exasperatedly, “that’s no way to talk to a baby.”

Masayoshi scrunches up his face and looks at Yonekuni, who absently holds the baby against his shoulder and pats his back. The child stops crying and falls asleep almost immediately.

Shiro’s mouth audibly clicks shut. He looks at Yonekuni for a second and his face reddens. Kunimasa shoots him a lax smile.

“You sure you two aren’t ready for kids yet?”

Yonekuni snorts. “Shut up, Kunimasa. You’ve scarred the whole family with this little stunt.” He lightly pats the exhausted, drooling the baby a few more times for emphasis. “If anything, I think you’ve bought us a few years.”

***

One morning, Kunimasa wakes up and Norio is next to him in bed, Masayoshi between them. Norio is relaxed, sleeping in his souls appearance like a proper new madararui parent. He’s curled up next to the kit with one prehensile monkey-cat paw laying over Masayoshi’s fat middle. Kunimasa lets out a low purr and curls around the both of them, hind legs and tail curling up to completely encompass their bodies, and feels more content than he will ever be able to describe.

There’s a snuffle, a short little yip, and Kunimasa opens his eyes to pitch black. Masayoshi is whining in his sleep. Kunimasa sneaks one big paw over the kit and draws him closer, so he can better smell Kunimasa’s neck. He licks Masayoshi’s back a bit, and the kit noses into the fur of Kunimasa’s neck and slowly falls back into lax sleep.

Norio was never here; he’s been gone for almost two years. They’re in the house he moved into with Yonekuni and Shiro, and tomorrow is his last day of leave before returning to his duties. Masayoshi starts daycare tomorrow.

Kunimasa curls around his baby and stares into the dark for a long time.

***

Life settles as Masayoshi does.  He learns to revert to his human form a bit later than is normal, something the pediatrician attributes to the early loss of his mother. But otherwise he grows to be healthy, smart, and mostly happy.

If Kunimasa could have seen Masayoshi’s human form from the beginning, the paternity test would have been laughably unnecessary. He has his mother’s curly hair and overwhelming freckles, but his coloring and his eyes are all Kunimasa.

One evening in the early winter Kunimasa goes to the kitchen, intent on a late-night snack before going to bed, where his errant four-year-old will undoubtedly have left his own bed to wait for him. He hears Shiro and Yonekuni speaking heatedly in the living room with another person, and stops a second on the stairs, not sure if he should risk interrupting.

He hears Norio’s name, and it’s as if the mere mention transports Kunimasa from the stairs to the sofa.

Hidekuni is in the living room, hair disheveled as if he’s run his fingers through it repeatedly. He’s gesturing with his hands as he recounts the last part of his trip in animated detail.

Kunimasa feels his heart thumping in his chest, blood rushing through his head, his hands are fisted in his sleep pants.

The information flashes on repeat, shocked static whiting out his brain.

Hidekuni has seen Norio.

***

Kunimasa does not rush off to see Norio. He’s an adult, he has responsibilities and a calendar that’s commonly full six months in advance.

It just so happens he already has a meeting scheduled in the same city Norio is living in roughly a month later. He noses around in Hidekuni’s room after a family dinner and pulls the address of the restaurant from the itinerary still sitting in Hidekuni’s desk. Then Kunimasa plays it by ear, he doesn’t let himself think too far ahead or develop any expectations. After all, he’s had property disputes such as this run into the early hours of the morning, so he may not even have time to go to the restaurant before it closes.

As such it’s not until he’s slumped in a plain black chair, waiting to be seated in the soft, lantern-lit interior of the restaurant where Norio supposedly works that he realizes he literally hasn’t thought past the potential of simply getting to _see_ Norio. Kunimasa has no idea if he’s going to try and speak to Norio, and if he does, he has no idea what he will say, how he will begin. He doesn’t know if Norio would agree to speak with him should the opportunity arise.

He doesn’t even know if Norio works tonight.

The entire train of thought preoccupies him to the point he almost misses the young man who walks past him, carrying a worn back pack on one shoulder and a bowl of soup in the other hand. He’s taller than the last time Kunimasa saw him, and if his hair wasn’t tied out of his face, if he hadn’t walked right past Kunimasa smelling so strongly of cheap cologne that it distracted him away from staring off at the opposite wall, Norio would have walked right by him, and he would have never noticed.

After Norio exits the restaurant Kunimasa spends a couple of minutes staring at the door, frozen in indecision. His phone vibrates. He checks it, taps a reply, then turns it on silent and quietly steps outside. Cats have a weaker sense of smell than dogs, but he doesn’t need a strong nose or even strong eyes to catch up to Norio. He’s just a couple buildings down the road, and Kunimasa doesn’t even think before he’s - not running, but - walking very fast to catch up. He grabs Norio by the shoulder and turns him against the wall. It’s rough, he didn’t mean to be so rough, but even so he’s surprised by the punch that glances against his cheek. Kunimasa steps to the side and grabs both of Norio’s hands to keep him from lashing out again, and pins Norio against the wall.

It’s the pinnacle of a thousand other mistakes. Norio is yanking his whole body against Kunimasa’s grip, shouting, “Leave me alone,” over and over.

“Norio,” he shouts, “Norio, hey, HEY!” But Norio doesn’t hear him. This isn’t what Kunimasa wanted. He lets go, takes a step back, and watches Norio sink to the ground, watches him shake and cough and cough and cough.

“Norio,” Kunimasa reaches a hand towards him and stops, unsure of any safe place he could even touch Norio right now. And how bad is it, that it has come to this? “Norio, Norio, hey, calm down. I didn’t mean-hey. Hey! Just, just breathe.”

Slowly, Norio’s coughs quiet down, and finally he starts to look up at Kunimasa.

“Hey, Norio-“

But Norio’s wide, panicked gaze has swept from Kunimasa’s shoes up, up to his face, and Kunimasa can tell as soon as Norio realizes just who has come to visit.

“Shit,” Norio enunciates clearly.

***

The meeting doesn’t go any better from there. Judging by the bags under his eyes and his persistent cough, Norio is unwell and not taking care of himself, and still won’t even let Kunimasa buy him soup or walk him home. It’s clear there is no way to convince Norio Kunimasa doesn’t have some ultierior motive for his visit. In the end, he watches Norio walk down the street and turn the corner before calling a taxi for himself.

Kunimasa stares at the ceiling of his hotel room for a long time. He runs through his last disastrous meeting with Norio and this one. He comes to the conclusion his conduct could use some improvement, because Norio always makes him act off the cuff in a way that is frankly embarrassing. Despite this, he can’t find an action he could have taken to give a better end product for either of them.

He mouths a question at the ceiling, _what should I have done?_ The ceiling doesn’t provide any better answers.

His life is busy enough to keep him from torturing himself with endless introspection. He goes home and talks with his brother, who is ballooning out, though Kunimasa values his life enough to not mention it. He cares for Masayoshi, who is getting bigger and smarter each day, in a way that makes him proud and makes him ache. Masayoshi is, as always, the thing in his life moving diametrically faster where everything else is staid.

He wakes up, goes to his meetings, does his job, fulfills his duties, goes to sleep.

One day he exits the bathroom, showered and dressed, and goes to check on Masayoshi before leaving for the day. He hears the rustle and talk of Shiro and Yonekuni getting ready, but not the child-babble that accompanies Masayoshi. At the bottom of the stairs he hears more of what he would expect and heads towards the kitchen.

“Masayoshi, did your uncles make you breakfast or-“

The table is set for a traditional Japanese breakfast the likes of which Kunimasa hasn’t witnessed in his own home for some time; there’s rice, miso soup, and tamagoyaki on the table. Masayoshi is sitting on one end, Norio on the other, both of them still in rumpled sleep clothes.

Kunimasa hasn’t had a dream with Norio feature his entire morning routine before. He waits to see what will happen, and the entire scene becomes long, boring, awkward. Finally, Norio says, “I only made enough for two.”

This is a different conversation than they usually have. Kunimasa takes a deep breath. He can smell Norio and Masayoshi together in the same room, a feast for his senses. His dreams have never been so vivid before.

“So I suggest you hunt up something else for yourself.”

He exhales, and waits a few more seconds. He’s also never before had a dream where Norio wasn’t happy to see him. His meeting with Norio must have shaken his psyche more than he thought.

Norio jerks his eyes away from Kunimasa and stands up. “Just so you know, it’s rude to leave a guest to make breakfast…” he trails off and picks up the soup bowls, the domesticity of the scene clashing horribly with the words coming out of his mouth. “Especially one who was just released from the hospital and was basically blackmailed into coming. If I knew I would be doing the cooking I would have fought harder to stay at my apartment.”

There’s a small squeak, and Norio turns to look at Masayoshi. Kunimasa’s son has pressed his lips until they are flat and white, and his hands are folded politely in his lap while his shoulders are up around his ears.

Kunimasa feels  his brain chugging rapidly, trying to grab a foothold on this new, jagged experience. Dreams with Norio are always so happy. He takes another breath, and realizes with a shocked clarity that Norio’s scent is not the same as five years ago. Beneath a layer of illness and distress it’s taken on the deeper musk of a mature nekomata

Norio instructs Masayoshi to help him clear the table, and Kunimasa begins to suspect—

“Norio,”

Norio turns his head in Kunimasa’s direction.

“Why are you…”

Norio pauses a minute, then says, “It’s a long story. Ask Shiro.” He deposits the bowls in the sink, then adds, “He didn’t tell me you were here before I agreed to come.”

Kunimasa feels as if the breath has been punched out of him. He feels his body go stiff, and opens his mouth to ask… something, he’s not sure what. The scene shifts as the click-clack of steps descending the stairs heralds Yonekuni and Shiro, freshly showered and dressed. Yonekuni takes in the scene in the kitchen and beckons Kunimasa outside.

And it’s that: Yonekuni, of all people, leading him _away_ from an exhausted Norio and upset Masayoshi, that’s what makes him finally accept this... this time…

This time, it’s not a dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Track 6: [Losing My Religion by REM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwtdhWltSIg).
> 
> I often struggle to find the right song to go with a chapter, but I knew immediately that this song was for Kunimasa as he's written in chapter 6. If you've been living under a rock and aren't familiar with it I strongly suggest you have a listen, because it's laughably appropriate. 
> 
> So I originally had other plans but given some of the feedback I figured we needed some perspective from Kunimasa to help round out the story. A lot of readers appear to view Kunimasa as a straight-up asshole, and while he’s definitely got some severe character faults I personally tend to see him as someone in a complicated situation with shitty interpersonal skills who needs to work on his empathy (writer talk for he’s complicated in a way that makes him fun to mess with, though Norio’s perspective comes a lot easier to me).
> 
> I’m sorry for the 7 month wait. Hopefully it won’t be so long next time. I should probably make a follow up tumblr post that's more complete, but the more immediate things going on is that right now between my toddler (the word really should be synonymous with asshole) and 1-month old baby I can literally only write in like, 10 minute spurts, and it’s hard to absorb the right tone to facilitate half decent writing in a situation like that. I can assure all of you I’m probably twice as frustrated as you imagine. Writing is the only thing that really clears my head; I get angry, at everything, without the outlet. Long story short, we should all send praise to my MIL for taking the toddler overnight recently, it was that combined with an actual half-decent night of sleep that made the completion of this chapter possible.


	7. All Things are Temporary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For all that Norio wants a safe place in the world, it’s never been here with these people the way he once anticipated it eventually would. Norio takes a deep breath and gets his head in order. There’s nobody like him in the world; so there’s no safe place for him, because society doesn’t build itself to house exceptions. The only safe place for anyone is the place they belong, and there’s not been a place like that for Norio since he was a stupid teenager who ran his scooter into a garden wall and broke his foot.

Norio awakes sometime in the afternoon feeling perhaps a bit less exhausted but, if possible, grosser than he had in the morning. The sun is painting dappled leaf patters on the wall through the window, and he stares at them until he musters the energy to grab his backpack and drag it to the bathroom. After soaping and rinsing himself he stares longingly at the bath before acknowledging he would probably fall asleep in it and drown. He meticulously packs his stuff back up and briefly contemplates his body spray. His shampoo, conditioner and body wash are all heavily perfumed, and he is still going to apply deodorant as well… Shiro and Yonekuni have always been non-issues, and Masayoshi is a child. It’s Kunimasa he has to watch for. Admittedly he hadn’t come near Norio at breakfast, but he didn’t appear to have been expecting him either, and his son had been in the room…

He runs over their disastrous recent encounter in his head and decides Kunimasa is a grown man who can control himself. In the past Norio’s status had always been a larger issue than his scent all on its own. If he has to handle Kunimasa, dousing himself in a bottle of cheap cologne isn’t going to make a difference one way or another. He puts the bottle back in his bag, applies deodorant and packs that too. He emerges in the hall clean, clothed, and feeling much better for it.

After depositing his backpack in the bedroom his stomach informs him the next order of business is food. Downstairs he finds Masayoshi under the kotatsu, absorbed in a mecha anime on the television. There’s a clanging sound from the kitchen, which turns out to be Yonekuni, wearing a bandana and an overlarge plain blue t-shirt with black sweats, rooting through the fridge and throwing containers of leftovers in the trash. He watches Yonekuni stop for a moment and lean forward, take a deep breath and press a fist to the middle of his back; the action stretches his shirt tight across his overlarge belly. Norio stands in the doorway, feeling awkward, like he’s spying on something intimate despite his unintentional presence.

Yonekuni sighs, ties off the trash bag and turns towards the doorway where Norio is standing. He pauses a second on seeing Norio, then asks, “Going somewhere?”

Norio blinks, “No?”

Yonekuni lugs the trash bag over his shoulder and comments, “You’re dressed like you’re going on a semiformal date.”

Norio glances over himself quickly. He’s wearing cheap black slacks and a white button-down short-sleeve shirt.

“Most of my clothes are like this.”

Yonekuni stares at him inscrutably for a moment, then cracks his neck and walks towards the doorway. Norio properly enters the kitchen and stands to the side. He assiduously keeps his gaze in the vicinity of Yonekuni’s shoulder and definitely NOT anywhere near his midsection.

Once alone in the kitchen, Norio pokes in the refrigerator and cupboards. With the leftovers gone the refrigerator is more than half empty, but he finds panko and there’s mostly-full packages of frozen hamburger and pork in the freezer…

“Hey, what are you doing?”

Norio turns towards Yonekuni. He’s standing by the kitchen island with his arms crossed over his chest.  
  
Norio is at a loss, not sure what Yonekuni is talking about.

“What?” he finally asks.

Yonekuni points towards the counter, where Norio had almost unconsciously began laying ingredients.

“Are you intending to cook?”

“…Yes?”

“Aren’t you sick?”

“Yes?”

Norio takes a minute to think it over, then grabs the box of medical face masks he found in one of the cupboards and waves it at Yonekuni.

Yonekuni steps forward and snatches the box out of Norio’s hand, “That’s not what I’m talking about, idiot. You’re supposed to be resting. I was just about to order dinner.”

Norio glances at the ingredients on the counter with a certain amount of longing. With his transient lifestyle, he’s not accumulated much in the way of belongings, including cookware. Between that and living alone there has never been much in the way of utensils or purpose for proper cooking. But here, the kitchen is properly outfitted, and there are ingredients on-hand…

Yonekuni huffs and gently grabs Norio by the shoulders, turning him towards the doorway.

“Go sit under the kotatsu with Masayoshi,” he says. “If you can’t tolerate his obnoxious mecha show he probably won’t put up too much fuss about letting you change it. He’s done nothing but talk about you all morning.”

Norio’s eyes get big, and though Yonekuni can’t see it, directing him from behind as he is, Norio imagines he knows. “Eh?”

Yonekuni laughs. “I caught him regaling his classmates with tales of your tamagoyaki this morning. If you cook him anything else while you’re here we will never hear the end of it. What were you going to make with all that stuff on the counter anyway?”

He releases Norio at the entrance to the living room, and Norio shrugs his shoulders helplessly, “Hamburger steaks?”

“Ffft, is your whole repertoire Japanese home cooking?”

Norio thinks for a minute and shrugs his shoulders again, “Pretty much.”

Yonekuni peers at him for a moment, “I thought Shiro said you were a waiter. You work a lot of cook positions too?”

“Not really,” Norio mulls over Yonekuni’s interest, but then again, Yonekuni basically grew up in a restaurant, and doesn’t seem overly invested in Norio’s answers. It’s refreshing, to talk but not be under a microscope with someone who knows who he really is. “Backroom positions are too warm, and I have to be careful of scents,” he replies honestly, then allows, “I used to cook with my mom a lot.”

“Hm,” Yonekuni doesn’t ask anything else, just points toward the kotatsu. Norio takes a step forward, then asks, “Face mask?” Because he is, after all, in a house with a pregnant person and a child.

“Just don’t cough on anyone. We’re ordering fried chicken tonight. Do you have any preference on sides?”

Norio shakes his head, and when Yonekuni turns back towards the kitchen he considers himself dismissed.

The kotatsu is warm, and Norio feels himself go boneless in the heat. It’s all he can do to not crawl completely under it like a typical house cat. Masayoshi passes him a couple of pillows, but otherwise leaves Norio alone in favor of watching the television. Norio curls around an overlarge faux fur lime green pillow and is only vaguely aware of Yonekuni joining them under the kotatsu before drifting off.

***

Some time later Norio is jerked awake by the slam of the front door. It’s followed by a curse from a voice that sounds like Shiro, the plop-plop of various items falling, more cursing, and the clatter-and-swish sound of shoes being exchanged for house slippers. In his peripheral vision Yonekuni and Masayoshi get up and he tilts his head to watch them meet Shiro in the entryway, picking up groceries and putting them back in bags before carrying them to the kitchen.

He hears murmurs of what is presumably small talk, but can only pick out a random word here and there. Except for when Masayoshi contributes, as evidenced by when he says, “AND THEN Kaya-sensei slipped and fell and her butt had blue paint on it AND THEN she turned into a mini-schnauzer again!”

Despite the hilarity of Masayoshi’s portion of the conversation, Norio can’t make out enough to keep his interest and probably shouldn’t be eavesdropping anyway. He turns his attention to the television, which has changed from the mecha anime to a rerun of _Candy or Not Candy?_ He idles away a few minutes watching Tomoya Nagase hesitantly bite down on a door handle only to find it is, in fact, candy. There’s muffled sounds from the kitchen, presumably of things being put away, and it suddenly occurs to Norio that with everyone busy now would be a good time to make a couple calls he’s been putting off.

He stands up and the fleece star blanket someone draped over him falls to the ground with a soft swish and a rumpled thud. He quietly walks to the hallway and, seeing that everyone has their attention on plating out boxes of takeout, he quickly crosses the hall and steps upstairs.

He can’t mask the soft creaking of the stairs, but nobody follows him. In the spare room he finds his phone charging on the floor by the bed. Norio takes a deep breath, unplugs the phone and opens his contacts. He decides to handle the calls from best to worst, doesn’t bother sitting, and begins walking back and forth across the room while the first number rings. His boss at the bakery doesn’t answer, so he leaves a voicemail affirming that he’s doing better and should be back to work within a week. Given she helped get him to the hospital, he’s not worried about that job. Setsuo takes the call at his evening job, and mostly just seems relieved the hear that Norio hasn’t dropped dead from illness. He agrees his job will be waiting for him in a week and actually offers Norio _more time_ , which is thoughtful, but Norio turns him down. He can’t afford more of a break anyway.

It’s his midday job he’s most worried about, and the call goes nowhere. The phone rings 3 times, and passes from a hostess to a waitress to a manager who takes a message, because it’s evening so his day manager won’t be back on shift until tomorrow.

That done, he plugs the phone back in and detours to the bathroom to splash water on his face before heading downstairs.

When he reaches the bottom step he finds that everyone is seated around the kotatsu, _everyone._ Kunimasa has come home and changed into a pair of black sweats and an old, soft blue shirt, and Norio can feel his souls appearance shudder, relax minutely and open one eye. For a split second Norio has a vicious urge to walk over and dump himself in Kunimasa’s lap.  He could bury his head in his shoulder, inhale the smell of Kunimasa at the end of the day and maybe steal fried chicken off his plate while going boneless with the assurance that someone cares for him.

But Kunimasa doesn’t care for him; he never has, not in the way Norio wanted. And it’s useless to give in to old, idle wants now. For all that Norio wants a safe place in the world, it’s never been here with these people the way he once anticipated it eventually would. Norio takes a deep breath and gets his head in order. There’s nobody like him in the world; so there’s no safe place for him, because society doesn’t build itself to house exceptions. The only safe place for anyone is the place they belong, and there’s not been a place like that for Norio since he was a stupid teenager who ran his scooter into a garden wall and broke his foot. 

He exhales and tries to envision his breath expelling all those old wants from his body. He can feel his souls appearance close his eye and curl back up. He tucks his nose under his tail, folds his ears against his skull. Yes, this; this is as safe as he can get where he is.

All things are temporary. This too will pass.

“Norio?”

With his thoughts in order he lifts his head up. He is still standing on the bottom step, and without realizing it he had taken to staring at the floor during his mental meanderings. Shiro has a piece of friend chicken between two fingers, and Norio realizes everyone has stopped talking to look at him.

“Sorry,” he says, lowering his shoulders and stepping across the entryway to the living area. He drops into the only available seat, which is neatly between Masayoshi and Shiro. It leaves Norio a good view of the television, which he can see just above Yonekuni and Kunimasa’s heads. Someone changed the channel while he was gone, and now the television is displaying a documentary about narwhals.

He would have expected it to be tense, sitting across from Kunimasa, and it is, but not nearly to the extent he would have expected. Kunimasa only looks at him fleetingly and never attempts to engage Norio directly in conversation.

Being awake for such a short period of time shouldn’t be so exhausting, but it is and Norio finds himself drifting. Kunimasa and Yonekuni are talking about some family Kunimasa had to help recently, something to do with a land dispute that might have to be resolved through a marriage.  Shiro glances at Norio worriedly, and then exchanges the empty plate at Norio’s place setting with a bottle. Norio absently reads the label and realizes it’s the medicine he was prescribed after leaving the hospital. He recalls the dosage and shakes out two tablets. Shiro immediately pours him some tea, then as soon as Norio picks up the teacup Shiro moves the bottle to the side and replaces Norio’s plate, now sporting a generous helping from a KFC kentadon bowl. Norio glares at the spread of chicken, deep fried shittake mushrooms, sweet potato and green peppers and scrunches his nose. Fried food is not something he indulges in often, but it’s not as if he’s in a position to be choosy.

As soon as Norio starts to make headway on a piece of chicken Shiro visibly relaxes, then turns to Yonekuni and Kunimasa and says, “as far as involving Azalea Simmons, it’s not a terrible idea. If there’s any way to establish a foundation for information exchange and referrals it could save a lot of problems and time in the future.”

Yonekuni shrugs, “Yeah, but the old man was downright rude to her. She’d have to nearly be a saint to consider it after what he said the last time he went into her shop.”

Kunimasa taps his fingers on the table, then leans his face into his other hand, “She was happy to maintain a working relationship before that though, if we approach it right…”

Norio tunes them out. The world is getting fuzzy, and he has the vague impression of everyone’s soul’s appearance. That more than anything else lets him know it’s time to just give up on being awake, and wow, that illness really must be taking more out of him than he realized, because usually his control is a lot better than this. Perhaps it’s the food. He’s cleared more than half the bowl Shiro gave him, and it’s sitting heavily in his stomach, as if the weight of all the food is trying to pull him to the floor.

Some indeterminate time later he half-rouses to the feel of strong arms lifting him off the nest of blankets he’s huddled in on the floor. At first he thinks he must have accidentally shifted to his soul’s appearance, but a “shhhh” in his ear relaxes the mounting panic, and he realizes no, his limbs are all human, just as he left them.

The shoulder he’s leaning against smells like Kunimasa, and while he most definitely does not nuzzle into the neck mere inches away, he allows himself a large inhale.

“Don’t worry, Norio,” Kunimasa’s voice says, “I’m just going to drop you off in bed.” There’s a slight pause, then he clarifies, “Your bed.”

“Mmmm.”

Ascending the stairs is like being rocked gently, as if he’s in a nest in the trees on a warm night with a gentle breeze.

“Trees huh, guess that makes sense.”

He hadn’t realized he was talking out loud.

“Hah.” Norio isn’t going to be self-conscious about this. Everything is nice and warm and smells good. The last time he felt this secure was far back, during the time he doesn’t let himself dwell on unless he’s feeling extraordinarily weak, and often not even then now.

There’s just one thing bothering him, something he needs to mention before he can sleep.

He hears the door open, then says, “Shiro.”

“Hm? He already went to bed. He-“

“No,” Norio mumbles quietly, so quiet he can barely make out his own voice. “He’s so… thin.”

The movement stops, and he feels the body he’s held against go momentarily tense before regaining its relaxed state, then Norio is gently laid on the bed, covers pulled up to his chin.

“Don’t worry about it. Just rest, I’ll handle it.”

Norio nods and rolls over.

The dreams that follow are vague, hazy, but important, not the kind he can ignore. He’s had this kind before but seldom in a way he’s at all comfortable with. Tonight he slides through the dreams, takes note, but they don’t grab at him, and on the other side is a calm darkness that gives him the best sleep he’s had in ages.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Track 7: [While You Were Sleeping by Elvis Perkins](https://youtu.be/mjN8kyK14wk)
> 
> “Candy or Not Candy” is a real Japanese game show. Dunno if it’s still in production, but you can find clips on youtube. I pulled the actor/singer mentioned here off [an article](https://parade.com/250957/smccook/japanese-game-show-challenges-everything-you-thought-you-knew-about-chocolate/) where he’s quoted as being a past contestant.
> 
> Also, the internet says a kentadon bowl is one of several [things you can order at KFC in Japan](https://en.rocketnews24.com/2014/06/12/kentucky-fried-rice-bowl-kfcs-kentadon-expands-throughout-east-japan/) aside from their famous fried chicken.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://ficklestripey.tumblr.com/)|[Reference Page](http://ficklestripey.livejournal.com/9451.html)


End file.
